Which companies do you think have the best reputation with U.S. consumers? If you said Apple, you'd be right -- but they aren't ranked quite at the top of the latest Harris Poll study this time around.

Apple is still the undisputed king of revenue when it comes to app sales, closing out 2012 with over three-and-a-half times the amount of return in comparison to Google Play. But lest you think the race for your app dollars is over, Android is showing increased signs of life, spurred on by an ever-growing market overseas.

Google has just revealed its earnings results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2012. While the company's deal with Arris Group over Motorola Home may have tampered with financial results somewhat, Google still managed to increase revenues year-over-year.

A bit of content news in this Friday edition of the recap, with Amazon's MP3 Store now allowing purchases from the iPhone and iPad, updates to the Dolphin Browser and the debut of Rolling Stone magazine on Newsstand. It will have to tide you over, since there won't be a weekend recap on Monday as we'll all be off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so enjoy your three-day weekend, folks!

If you're going to try to beat Google at its own game, you need three things: good design, quick results, and an impressive algorithm. Izik, a new iPad-only browser from relatively unknown search start-up Blekko, performs so remarkably well in all three categories that Google might want to take notice. I was skeptical at first. Every now and again, some indie search engine threatens to knock Google off of its pedestal, only to crumble under the weight of lofty expectations. But Izik is the closest thing to a Google replacement I have ever used.

Now that the booths have been broken down, the awards have been handed out and the last bit of per diem has been fed into a slot machine at McCarran International Airport, there's a general sense that something was missing from CES. Somehow, among the thousands of exhibitors, products and prototypes, the biggest splash was a television that few consumers could afford and a keynote presentation that the greatest minds in tech journalism are still trying to figure out.

Hopefully, the recently released Google Maps for iPhone app has solved most of your potential woes, after the ill-received Apple Maps in iOS 6. Now that Google has us all back on the right road (literally), one might wonder just how excited iPhone users are to see a competent third-party mapping system back on their devices. According to the download numbers -- very excited.

Out with the old, and in with the arguably satisfactory alternatives. Today, Google has announced plans to discontinue some services, particularly within Google Sync for Microsoft Exchange and Calendar, as part of some "winter cleaning." The company claims the decisions were based on "less popular" features.